Apropos of nothing much, here’s a tip for those folks with private numbers who don’t like giving them out to people with anonymous call blocking.
My local Bell offers you the option of either dialing *88 (I think) to disable the private number before you call, or entering the number directly after the message that says “This call can’t be completed for numbers that aren’t indentifiable by caller ID.”
Here’s the tip:
You don’t have to actually enter your real number. It’ll accept any sequence of 10 digits.
{If I accept your apology, does that mean that I shouldn’t pay the money to the guy who pissed in your Cheerios? I’d still like to do that you know. In fact, maybe I should give him a $10.}
Hey! Not only did that guy mis-dial a phone number–on his cell phone–in the car–while using his turn signal–he hung up the phone before waiting to apologize to the person–AND cancelled his turn signal without apologizing to people behind him!!! :eek:
Go sikk’em dog!
I use it to screen the calls from the moms who need to me do something for them.
I try to answer only when I have an instant reciprocal for them. Otherwise, I don’t answer. ( If you don’t have an instant, “Hey can you do this for me on such and such a day…”) they will never ever pay you back.
I also love to watch teenagers sit there and go, " What area code is 586? and I don’t recognize this number…whoooo could be calling me" on their cells. I point out that 586 is X part of the town and that it was probably a wrong number and if it wasn’t, they will call back. And every time. EVERY.TIME. these twits call the number that misdialed them to find out that it was…a misdial or number that belongs to someone else. :rolleyes:
See, now, I have caller ID. But if you were a friend of mine, you’d probably never get a call back. I use caller ID to weed out telemarketers when I’m home. If I’ve been out, I check the answering machine and return messages that are there. If there aren’t any messages, I don’t sift through the caller ID to see if anybody important called. You called me, I provided a way for you to tell me you called and why; if you failed to avail yourself of it, you’re indicating that your call wasn’t important enough to return. The onus is not on me to hunt you down.
“Hi. 'S me. Gimme a call.” <click> There, was that so hard?
And I still haven’t had a response from the call-'em-back crowd regarding whether you’d ever returned a call that actually turned out to be IMPORTANT. Kinda funny, when you think about that.
How about from your returnee’s perspective? That’s what we’re trying to get you to understand, here. How many times have you returned a call where the answer to the question “Who are you, and what did you call me about?” was something more engaging than “What? Oh THAT… nothing. Wrong number.”
And this:
is hardly called for. If you’ll notice in my first post, I said I’ve returned these kinds of calls myself. Others in the the thread have said so also, without receiving wrath.
If you don’t know me, and I’ve left a message for someone, I’d be happy to know I got the wrong phone number. If I haven’t left a message, well gee, maybe it’s because I actually listened to your answering machine and realized I had the wrong number. Don’t call me back to find out who I am, as I don’t actually give a rat’s ass who you are other than you’re not the person I was trying to get in touch with.
Perhaps I missed the part where you said you have an answering machine or voice mailbox so that people who call you can tell you what is so all-fired important. If you’re so intensely concerned about getting information that people wish to transmit to you, you do have one, right?
Do you also have a camera installed outside your front door so you can track down people who knocked while you weren’t home?
[QUOTE=BubbaDog]
Send me the $10. For that I’ll piss in my own Cheerios. Much rather have an omelette anyway.
Okee Dokee. $10 coming your way. You probably don’t want to post your home address on-line, so why don’t you just tell me your phone number?
[afterschool special]
Yep. A lady called me and asked me why I had called her number. I told her that her child had been selected to be on a soccer team I was coaching and that 1st practice was the next day. I know you don’t think it’s important, but her very shy little girl would have had that much more anguish if she came to second practice instead of the first. At the first practice all of the kids are a little bit shy so she didn’t feel too bad. It probably made the difference in her staying on the team and making a few much needed friends. [/afterschool special]
thaumaturge72, No,no,no - SAVE your $10 and subscribe.
Admit it. You’re having fun.
I have caller ID at home. If I don’t recognize the name or number, I don’t pick up. If they don’t leave a message? I don’t really care. If it was important, they woulda left a message.
It doesn’t have to be so “all-fired important.” Obviously, it was important enough for them to call me. Is it so unimaginable that I would call them back?
I only have a cell phone, and of course it comes with voicemail, yes.
No, I tag everyone I know so I can follow them with a modified GPS system. What the fuck. They called me. I find it completely reasonable to think that if someone undertook a voluntary action to get in touch with me, there was a reason. Why wouldn’t I call them back?
The extraordinarily simple answer to this, which the rest of us understand, was posted above (bolding mine):
People change their minds. They find the answer themselves. They decide to ask someone else because you weren’t available. They had some free time and just felt like chatting, but now they’re engaged in something else and don’t have time to shoot the breeze. They wanted to get together with you on Tuesday night, but now it’s Thursday morning. And yes, they dial wrong numbers. I know this is going to be over your head, but some calls are absolutely unimportant, and it’s annoying to have to rehash the reason for the call after the fact when the issue has been resolved, or there was never one in the first place.
And by the way, it’s height of rudeness to call someone up and demand, “Who’s this?” Which is frequently how these annoying little caller ID interrogations begin.
No, no joke really - me and Wikkit go waaaaaaaay back. I have knocked on his door at 4:30 in the morning before- Rode to a dopefest in my jammies with him - He just moved and I don’t know where he lives now, and I don’t know his new phone number*. I just thought I’d throw in that spolier to guilt, errr get him to call me.
Well, as long as he leaves a message when he calls, I’m A-OK with that. Otherwise you’re gonna have to check your caller ID log and call him back to ask him why in heaven’s name he called!
They called me. What this means is open to question. Why would I leave it up to someone else to determine what information I will find important? If they have information and don’t try to contact me at all, of course, then I have no way of knowing. But if someone tries to contact me, then I want to know why. I don’t understand what the problem with this is. For whatever reason, someone wanted to talk to me, they found some need or thought pressing enough to get in touch with me. Whether they changed their mind or not is mostly irrelevant; now I am aware of the possibility.
But I won’t know it is unimportant to me unless I call.
Oh, contraire! I would think that this is significantly important. So much so, in fact, that I would have left a message upon unsuccessfully contacting a member of that household.
Does that lady pay for CID, but not voice-mail or an answering machine?
Darn, you sure you don’t want to post your phone number?
Yeah, I know. Saving that $10 puts me 2/3 there. Now I just have to find someone else who’ll get me half as riled up as you did…
That’s smacks of the same logic my ex-girlfriend used to annoy me with. She’d always find the need to ask me.
“What’cha thinking?”
For a while, I’d answer truthfully, but then I eventually started to respond with “nothing” because it was either true, (or because I didn’t feel like explaining the entire series of tangents that started with me noticing a new buildboard on the side of the road, a few more tangents, then took an unexpected detour to wondering why Kirk always got these hot alien women all over the universe to make out with him when had such a hard time getting homo-sapiens females to even make eye contact with me – to my current idle thought of that my tounge is still tingling from when I tried that new toothpaste–I don’t think I like that).
Endless repitions of this question over months changed any thought that I currently had into an instant thought of:
“I’m thinking that if I wanted to talk about it, I’d be talking, rather than quiet.”
Why do people feel the need to have others explain why or when they might have thought about them? Is it an insecurity issue?
Calling that person back to inquire about that historical phonecall now wastes more of that persons time. They now have to explain what they were thinking about, why they called, why they thought that it wasn’t important to them at that time to leave a message, and now justify it to you. As if anyone has the time for that, or the desire to explain/apologize.
Being unable to leave a message (because of your lack of v-mail or answering maching) is a horse of a different color. But like someone else posted above, its 2004, get one already. If your that concerned about it, voicemail costs what, an extra $2.50 a month?
Is it an insecurity issue?